


Hard Feelings

by albabutter



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-03-26 08:29:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13853925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albabutter/pseuds/albabutter
Summary: Jyn Erso stops believing in soulmates the day her mother dies.The first time her knuckles turn blue, Saw laughs and tells her that at least her soulmate’s a good fighter.“How do you know?”“If he lost, more than your knuckles would be blue.”Jyn doesn’t care if he won; she pays him back with skinned knees.Soulmate AU where wounds/bruises show up as blue marks on your soulmate's body*recently updated for alternative wish fulfillment "what if they survived" chapter*





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> mostly canon compliant, lines up with the sequence of events in the canon, and dialogue from the movie where possible. I've got movie knowledge only for Star Wars, so please ignore anything glaringly wrong from an EU perspective.

Jyn grows up in a home with soulmates. Lyra explains that sometimes the cosmos likes to make it easier for souls to find each other--to let them know they’re not alone in the universe. Jyn sees the marks on her mother’s hands from the kitchen and the crops, and sees the matching blue on her father. Lyra shows her marks on her fingers, laughs, and asks her to guess whether or not her father got clumsy with the welder or got zapped by the droids. Jyn cries when she sees them, asks if they hurt. Galen tells her not to worry; they’re like any other boo-boo--kiss and make them better. He shows up with a large bruise on his face (a malfunctioning vaporizer) and she lays a big kiss on his father’s cheek and a big one on her mother’s cheek as well. The blue the same shade as the sky. 

 

Jyn Erso stops believing in soulmates the day her mother dies. 

 

The first time her knuckles turn blue, Saw laughs and tells her that at least her soulmate’s a good fighter. 

“How do you know?”

“If he lost, more than your knuckles would be blue.”

Jyn doesn’t care if he won; she pays him back with skinned knees. 

 

There are a couple of terrible years where he goes through a growth spurt, and she becomes the clumsiest person this side of the galaxy. Her elbows and shins stay robin’s egg blue for the better part of six months. Then comes the year where everyday, Jyn wakes up covered in navy bruises. Black eyes, bruised jaws, shredded knuckles. Weird cylindrical bruises on his arms and legs, and across his back. It isn’t until Saw throws a staff at her for training, and she starts getting her own bruises, that she understands exactly what her soulmate’s been doing. Saw keeps track of the progress for both of them. 

“Look at that spot on his shoulder--how it’s darker than the graze on his arm. He rolled away to avoid the blow.”

His bruises stay on her knuckles and her knees from where he lands hard on the ground, but her face stays clear, and soon her own bruises move to the same places. 

“He’s getting better. And so are you.”

 

Jyn is thirteen the first time her soulmate gets a hickey. It’s small and blotchy and high enough on her neck that everyone sees it. It’s mortifying. So she does what any embarrassed, jealous thirteen year old would do. She one-ups him. Jyn gnaws on her wrist until it’s a red mess. Saw raises his eyebrows at her. 

“Do I want to know how long it took you to do that?”

“None of your business!”

He laughs at her, a full belly laugh that she rarely hears anymore.

“Well, at least now he knows what he’s getting into.”

Jyn wakes up the next morning to an ugly blue blotch on her other wrist. The rest of the crew tease her relentlessly, and it just goes from there. They spend the better part of a year chewing on each other. It’s annoying and constant, but it’s theirs. 

 

And he doesn’t get anymore hickies from anyone that’s not her. 

 

When she’s fourteen, Jyn spends three months with a bruise on her upper right shoulder. It’s consistently remade in the same spot, and it takes her awhile to realize it’s the butt of a rifle blaster. 

“Saw, I think he’s a sniper.”

“I officially give him my blessing.”

Jyn’s fourteen and snotty and nervous that her person may not be the swashbuckling pirate she’s been imagining. 

“But what if he’s an assassin?”

Saw shrugs. “As long as he’s not with the empire, don’t worry about it.”

 

She’s fifteen when she ends up with bruises on her arms that look like hands digging in from the wrong angle. She begs one of the crew to let her use him as a dummy to solve the mystery marks. Jyn’s not prepared for the dread she feels when they figure out that it’s from a headlock. From someone trying to escape the headlock. For the amount of pressure needed to make those bruises. They’re both a little quiet, a little cautious, after that. She gets lovebites of her own a couple months later--a trail from her neck down to her breasts. She doesn’t get any marks on her wrists, but the knuckles on her right hand are tinged blue. 

 

Jyn’s sixteen when Saw leaves her behind. She’s barely hurt, but the hours she spends hiding in what is essentially a glorified pipe are some of the loneliest she’s had since she lost her parents. She sucks on her wrist, partly to muffle her cries and partly out of comfort. It isn’t until she escapes on a stolen ship that she looks down and sees a small blue patch right next to hers. It’s enough to keep her moving and keep her going. 

 

The next few years are miserable for both of them. She puts bruises on their knuckles, and he gives them battered ribs, and they both get blaster-whipped more than once. But the older they get, the fewer the bruises. They’re getting good, quicker, deadlier. She’s got a callous on her trigger finger that she knows matches his.

 

When she’s twenty-three, a bounty hunter almost strangles her to death. The handprints around her neck are purple and ugly, and she can only imagine what went through her soulmate’s mind when he woke up to find them. She covers them up with the scarf she usually uses to cover her hair. When she goes to pull on her jacket, she sees the mark on her wrist. It’s dark, more teeth than anything, and she knows instinctively that this was a frantic mark, panic in response to the marks on their necks. She’s in a rush--Kestral Dawn needs to get the hell out of town--but she takes the time to bite down hard on her wrist, next to his mark. She doesn’t break the skin, but her hand throbs so she knows it’ll stick. 

 

She’s not prepared for the day when she wakes up to what can only be a blastershot in her shoulder. She panics, digging her nails into her arm, trying to turn to see the mirrored bruising on her back. She does break skin this time, but she doesn’t get a response back. Her shoulder is the darkest indigo she’s ever seen and it covers half of her chest. It’s a bone deep bruise--the kind that takes weeks to heal. It disappears in a couple of hours, and she completely loses it. She’s always known that the odds of her meeting her soulmate in person were slim to none (her parents had beaten the odds but maybe they’d both be alive if they hadn’t). She had spent her childhood on a planet with less than a thousand inhabitants, and then as a child soldier, and then as a wanted criminal. Jyn’s entire life has been spent in hiding and avoiding attachments. But she’s also spent her entire life tied to someone who knew her in a way that no one else in the entire universe could. She wouldn’t be the first person to lose her soulmate, and she wouldn’t be the last. But the grief completely overwhelms her. She’s conned her way onto a freighter leaving Coruscant, and she hides in the cargo bay to have her breakdown in private. A Twi’lek, Numa, finds her, clutching her should and crying--the ugly kind that she usually saves for the anniversary of her mother’s death. 

“Are you wounded?” 

The Twi’Lek sounds suspicious, and Jyn shakes her head. 

“No,” she chokes out, and Numa relaxes a little bit, but then she frowns. 

“Then what’s wrong?”

Something snaps in Jyn and words just start falling out of her mouth. 

“Everyone leaves. My father left me for the empire. My mother left me for my father. My general left me for his stupid fucking crusade. And my soulmate left me for, for--” she breaks off, because she’ll never know how to end that sentence. Jyn tries to take deep breaths, stave off the crying, and ignores how shaky she sounds. She uses the humiliation churning in her gut to get her up off the floor and back on steady ground. Numa looks uncomfortable, but sympathetic. 

“Everyone leaves at some point. One day you’ll leave too.”

Jyn thinks it’s supposed to be comforting, and maybe it could be, but mostly it’s just a practical observation, and the common sense of it helps snap her out of it. Numa gives her a sharp nod. 

“Clean your face and make some cafe. I’ll meet you in the mess.”

Jyn does as she’s told and when they meet back up, they sit in silence for a while. 

“Do you know how they died?”

“Blaster.”

Numa nods. “There are worse ways to go. Where were they hit? Was it quick?”

Jyn touches her chest. 

“Shoulder. Or back maybe. It was a clean shot. He was gone two hours later.”

Numa frowns. “He was gone or the mark was gone?”

“Same thing.”

The Twi’lek rolls her eyes and scoffs. “It didn’t occur to you that maybe they have access to bacta?”

“Bacta patches couldn’t heal that kind of wound that quickly.”

“Full submersion would. Do they have access to a full bacta tank?”

“I don’t. I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Kriff, you’re stupid. Give them a little time. Don’t break your own heart for no reason.”

Jyn does feel stupid, but she’s also too fucking scared to hope for better. They end up dropping her off in the outer rim with a blaster, three credits, and a smack to the back of the head, courtesy of Numa. Jyn takes it all with a smile; she’s got a distinctly blue elbow--the kind you get from knocking into a table or walking into a door. It’s enough. 

 

Jyn as Liana ends up in Wobani. Most of her own bruises are from work details, and her soulmate seems to be okay on their end. The prison is pretty standard. The prison break-out even seems fairly normal. Getting body slammed by a reprogrammed imperial droid is completely unexpected. It knocks the wind out of her, and Jyn doesn’t need to look to know her back is going to be black and blue. But between Jedha, and Saw, and her father, her soulmate is the last thing on her mind. 

 

Everything changes on Eadu. 

“Does he look like a killer?”

“No. He has the face of a friend.”

Chirrut reaches up and brushes a thumb across Jyn’s cheek. “The face of a friend,” he murmurs. 

Jyn ignores it for now, because all she can focus on is a rebel captain with a blaster and an order. 

 

The explosions on the platform make her ears ring, so she can’t hear herself screaming for her father, and she can’t hear Cassian yelling for her, but she can feel him tugging her away. Back on the ship, it all comes crashing down. They bait each other, his guilt and her apathy, and he’s in her face, telling Jyn about his own life as a child soldier when he breaks off. The same dark eyes that had been glaring at her are now roaming all over her face. The abrupt change makes her mouth click shut. She’s not sure what he’s looking for, and before she can ask, he raises his hand to her cheek and runs his thumb against it, the same as Chirrut. Something inside of Jyn goes completely still; everyone in the bay seems to be holding their breath. Cassian grabs her hand and pulls it up to his own cheek, bruised and battered from K-2 slapping him, and Jyn knows. She knows in the marrow of her bones that it’s him. There’s something on Cassian’s face that looks like wonder, and Jyn thinks of the skinned knees, and the lovebites, and the comfort of knowing that someone somewhere in the universe knew where she hurt. She wonders if he ever kissed her marks the way she sometimes did in the dark, desperate for the connection. And then she remembers her father, broken and bleeding, and Cassian with his dark eyes and clenched jaw, and his blaster. She rips her hand away from him. 

“This doesn’t change  _ anything _ .”

His face shuts down, and he shoves past her. She doesn’t watch him, but she hears him climb up the hatch and tell K-2 to head to Yavin 4. 

 

It turns out that soulmates don’t matter that much when you’re trying to save the galaxy. But they’re still nice to have. 

“They were never going to be believe you. But I do.” 

He’s ready and willing to follow her to wherever they end up. She looks at the flecks of blue on his face, the ones that match up perfectly with her own. She thinks about her father kissing the tips of her mother’s fingers when she slammed them in a drawer, and her mother returning the favor on his blue-tipped fingers. She reaches out to cup his face, and Cassian leans into the touch. 

“I’m not used to people sticking around.”

He lays his hand on top of hers and leans down to kiss her wrist, sweet and chaste. 

“Welcome home.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Seriously! Have you guys talked about the-” he points vaguely at her bruises, finger dangerously close to actually poking her. She smacks his hand.
> 
> “No, we haven’t. There’s not a lot to talk about.”
> 
> “What do you mean ‘not a lot to talk about’? You’re soulmates. And you literally just met. Shouldn’t you guys be talking about your feelings or sneaking off to an empty closet somewhere?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> essentially the alternative ending that turned into a full blown chapter. wishful thinking about our faves surviving the unsurvivable.

Chirrut is unbearably smug when they make it off Scarif. 

“The Force protected us.”

Baze doesn’t even respond--just drops his head on Chirrut’s shoulder and grabs the back of his neck. Chirrut leans against him, and Jyn looks away from them, a little overwhelmed by the intimacy. Bodhi looks as bewildered as she feels, and Cassian is out cold. She has to look away from his face, bruised and battered and blue, and stares at her hands instead. They’re still shaking from the adrenaline, and when they land on Yavin, Bodhi has to help her up off the floor, heads steady on her shoulders. 

“You alright?”

“Will be, as soon as we get off this kriffing ship.”

 

She should have stayed on the ship.

 

They get mobbed, and Jyn can’t hear anything but the dull roar of a hundred different people talking, arguing, and underneath all of it, quietly crying for the people who didn’t make it back. Her head throbs, and she steps closer to Bodhi. Cassian is being carted off by med droids, but she’s immediately distracted by Draven, who’s cutting through the crowd like a scythe. Bodhi shrinks behind her and grabs her sleeve. Jyn swallows hard and shrugs him off. 

“Go with Cassian. I’ll meet you there.”

“Are you sure?”

Bodhi’s nervous, eyeing Draven, but he doesn’t move from her side until she pushes him towards the med droids. 

“Positive. Make sure Cassian actually stays in the medbay. You know he’ll try to run off as soon as he’s awake.”

He gives her a grim smile and disappears into the crowd. Draven watches him go, eyes narrowed, but he comes to a stop in front of Jyn, undeterred. She goes on the offense.

“It was the right thing to do.”

“It was a stupid thing to do. And more importantly, it was pointless.”

“We-”

“Failed.”

She pushes down the urge to punch him, but her fists still clench.

“We got the plans off Scarif. I finished the transmission myself.”

Draven pins her with a cold look. 

“Yes, you did. Straight onto a ship that was captured and boarded by Vader himself. So now, not only do we not have the plans, the empire now knows they have a weakness and can fix it. You failed.”

Shame is burning in her throat, and she swallows it back like bile. 

“We had to try. Running and hiding wasn’t the answer. I won’t apologize for trying to do the right thing.”

The look Draven gives her feels like a slap in the face. 

“Jyn Erso I don’t think you’ve apologized for anything in your entire miserable life.”

Jyn lets her anger take charge, pushing everything else away to help get her through this moment.

“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if your fighters hadn’t killed my father.”

Draven shoots a pointed look towards all the people rushing the wounded to the medbay and the others who are trying to push past their grief. 

“My condolences for your loss.”

He walks away, exposing her to the dozens of angry glances thrown her way. Jyn tries to help unload one of the few ships that made it back, but she’s brusquely pushed away, and she heads to the medical bay instead. She’s handed a bacta patch and hustled out to make room for the more seriously wounded. She finds an unoccupied corner and parks herself there to rest. Bodhi finds her a while later, leg outstretched and covered in bacta. He sits down next to her, careful not to jostle her too much.

“Do you know what’s going on? No one will talk to me.”

Bodhi’s face is wide and open and for a second, she wonders if Draven is behind the radio silence--if he wants to make sure that it’s her who has to be the one to tell him. 

“Bodhi, the plans didn’t make it.”

“Off of Scarif? I thought you said you finished transmitting them?” 

“I did. They got captured. The empire has them. We failed. Everything we did, everything my father did. It was for nothing,” she says, bitterly. 

When she turns to Bodhi, he looks as devastated as she feels, and she has to look away. He leaves, and she doesn’t try to stop him. 

 

Jyn falls asleep at some point and wakes up to a woman in fatigues who pulls her up and guides her to a small room with an empty bunk. The woman doesn’t say anything, which Jyn is pathetically grateful for, and her hands are surprisingly gentle when she helps Jyn out of her pants. She sticks a fresh bacta patch onto her leg, and Jyn says, “thank you” but passes out before she can hear a reply. She sleeps like the dead. By the time she wakes up, her mouth is disgusting, her leg is healed but covered in dried blood, and she almost forgets how fucking terrible everything is. Jyn stumbles back out into the base and everyone’s too busy to give her a second glance. She makes her way to the mess and plops down at a table in the back. She spends too long poking at the sludge on her plate and doesn’t see Cassian before he slides in across from her. Jyn knows by his face that he already knows. 

“I didn’t think you’d be out of the tank yet.”

Cassian shrugs. 

“Limited resources. Out of danger, out of the tank.”

She looks him over, and he definitely seems better. But she still sees her own bruises scattered over his body. Her eyes linger on the blue smudge on his cheek, and his lips quirk into a small smile. 

“We’ve definitely looked worse.”

We. It’s a word that throws her. Not the ‘we’ of the resistance, or the ‘we’ of rogue one. ‘We’ is Cassian and Jyn, and two decades of history. It’s an important word. 

She nods. “Yeah, we have.”

“Are you ready to talk-” Bodhi sits down, and she kicks Cassian’s shin. She gives him a meaningful look, and he rolls his eyes. They both turn to Bodhi, who’s jittery and anxious, but he doesn’t look scared. Jyn breaks the silence. 

“So what did I miss?”

“A lot of meetings that you wouldn’t have been invited to anyways.”

Jyn glares at Cassian while Bodhi snickers. 

“They’re working on the evacuation plan.”

“Did they say where we’re going?” she asks.

Bodhi frowns. “They haven’t said, but I doubt we’re going to be the first ones to know.”

They both turn to Cassian, who shrugs. 

“They haven’t told me yet, either.”

He says it casually, effortlessly, but she knows, somehow, that he’s not quite telling the truth. Or rather, not all of it. 

They’re hovering over the topic, unsure of where everyone stands, but surprisingly, it’s Bodhi who breaks first.

“This is bullshit! They can’t do this.”

Anger is a curious thing on Bodhi, and Jyn gets distracted by it for a moment. 

“They can, and they should. I disobeyed direct orders, and people died because of it.”

He very carefully avoids Jyn’s eyes, and she knows they’re both thinking of the first time he disobeyed orders--one sniper shot away from her father’s crumpled body.

“We did the right thing, Cassian. We had to try.”

He nods. “It was a risk, and we took it. This time it didn’t work out.”

“Exactly! So they can’t kriffing cut us out of everything,” Bodhi snarls. 

Cassian slants him a look. 

“It’s not like they’re going to start handing out medals for  _ trying _ .”

Bodhi’s shoulders slump, and Jyn grinds her teeth. 

“So now what? Execution squad or are they just going to push us out of an airlock?”

Bodhi gives her a horrified look, and Cassian rolls his eyes. 

“Kriff, you’re dramatic. No one’s going anywhere. Breathe, Bodhi. They’re not throwing us in the brigs. Especially not you. The resistance always needs more people, and they’ll never turn down a pilot. You on the other hand-” and he points a finger at her- “you’re going-”

“With you or with Bodhi.”

Cassian sighs, irritated like he knew she was going to say that. 

“I meant something more along the lines of sanitation duty.”

She doesn’t reply--just glares at him. He glares right back.

“Jyn.”

“Cassian.”

She pulls him into a stare down effortlessly, and she can see Bodhi fidgeting out of the corner of her eye. Cassian blinks first and pushes away from the table with a huff. 

“You’re a pain in my ass, Jyn Erso.”

“You’re the one who broke me out of prison. No one to blame but yourself.”

He flicks a bit of sludge off his tray in her direction and leaves before she can retaliate. 

Bodhi looks like he’s trying not to laugh.

“What?”

“Just, you guys are kind of cute.”

Jyn grimaces. “Ugh, don’t.”

“Seriously! Have you guys talked about the-” he points vaguely at her bruises, finger dangerously close to actually poking her. She smacks his hand. 

“No, we haven’t. There’s not a lot to talk about.”

“What do you mean ‘not a lot to talk about’? You’re soulmates. And you literally just met. Shouldn’t you guys be talking about your feelings or sneaking off to an empty closet somewhere?”

She flicks an entire spoonful of sludge straight at his face and ignores his indignant squawk when she gets up and walks away. He gets back at her by dragging her to the hangar and forcing her into about four hours of banging around the innards of the shuttle before he gets frustrated and throws her out. She kicks his toolbox over on her way and runs off when he yells after her. 

She wanders outside but before she gets too far, she hears a familiar voice. 

“Long time, no see.”

Jyn sighs and turns around. “Do you ever get tired of that?”

“No,” Baze and Chirrut say together--Chirrut cheerful and Baze long-suffering.

Chirrut is propped up on a crate and Baze wanders away, picking up ammunition to pack away. Chirrut smiles at her, and she plops down on the crate across from him.

“Would you like to know what I see in your future?”

Jyn snorts. “Sanitation duty courtesy of Draven?”

Chirrut nods. “Well that, but there’s also a partner with the face of a friend and marks to match your own.”

Jyn touches her wrist without thinking about it. Chirrut smiles knowingly. 

“Do you have a soulmate?” she asks, glancing at Baze instinctively. 

“You’re looking at him.”

Her eyes snap back to Chirrut, roaming over his face. 

“You won’t find any marks. The Force has more than one way of bringing people together, Jyn Erso.”

“But you knew. You knew that he was yours?”

Chirrut shakes his head. “I knew that my place was with him, and his with me.”

“So you stay together.”

“We choose to.”

She looks back at Baze, who is somehow fitting an insane amount of weapons into a bag. 

Chirrut makes a shooing motion, and she rolls her eyes and hops down. Baze is deconstructing his blaster and doesn’t so much as blink when she comes to stand next to him. 

“So, Chirrut is your soulmate.”

Baze snorts. “So I’ve been told.”

“But you guys don’t have any marks.”

He shrugs. “Don’t need them.”

“You followed him to Scarif, and you’ll follow him to wherever he goes after this?”

“I’ll go with him. Who will protect him if I don’t?”

“The Force will protect me!” Chirrut calls out. Baze rolls his eyes and shakes his head. 

“Jyn Erso all is as the Force wills it. Follow your destiny!”

Baze sighs and turns to her. 

“Your ‘destiny’ is meeting with the council right now.” Baze hoists the pack over his shoulder, irritated, but there’s a fond look on his face as he moves to join Chirrut. 

 

She runs into Cassian in the corridor leading to his quarters and follows him without a word. He raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything, and he lets her into his room without question. Jyn strolls over and sprawls onto his bed. He leans against the wall.

“Did you ever think we’d meet?”

Whatever he’s expecting her to talk about, it very clearly isn’t this. He pauses. 

“I hoped so, but no, I didn’t think we would.”

“Because of your lifestyle or because of mine?”

“Both. I just wasn’t sure which one of us would die first.”

She exhales and cracks her knuckles. Cassian stays where he is. 

“Did you ever look for me?”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t go out and search, but I looked for you everytime I met a new recruit or an informant. Everytime one of us got a black eye, I’d look for a woman with the same mark.”

“How did you know I was a woman?”

Cassian grimaces, sulky. 

“I grew up with you, remember? No man is that creative or vindictive. Besides, you ended up with certain bruises when you were with...others, I guess.”

“Did it bother you when I was?”

“Did it bother  _ you _ ?”

Jyn rolls onto her side and meets his eyes. 

“Yes.”

Cassian nods and takes a deep breath. “Jyn-”

But she’s on her feet in front of him before he can say more. She starts with her jacket. 

There’s nothing sensual about her undressing (she takes her clothes off the same way she does everything else--quick and to the point), but he watches her with an intensity that sets her skin on fire. By the time she’s slipping out of her pants, his clothes are on the floor next to hers. Cassian spares an appreciative look for her breasts, but his hands skim over everything else--the shrapnel in her hip, the knobs of her spine, the scars on her knuckles. He runs both thumbs down the column of her neck, eyes flat and narrowed with anger. 

“When I woke up with those marks, I thought you’d been-” he shakes his head. “I wanted to kill them.”

Jyn puts her hand over the knot of scar tissue above his heart.

“I know the feeling.”

Cassian leans forward and presses a gentle kiss at the hollow of her throat, and then he hauls her up and over to the bed. It’s cramped and small, and barely fits one of them, let alone two, but she couldn’t care less. They kiss hard, frantic, more teeth than tongue. Jyn wonders if their lips will be tinged blue tomorrow, swollen and brazen, and just the thought of it pulls a moan out of her. Cassian pulls away, panting, and she takes the chance to bury a hand in his hair and drag the other down his cheek; the silkiness of his hair and scrape of his stubble makes her thighs clench automatically around his waist and she feels his dick twitch against her belly. 

“What do you want?” She’s a little annoyed at how out of breath she is, but at least it’s not just her. It takes him a minute to respond to her. He sits up and lets his eyes roam her body, and she knows that he’s cataloguing ever scar and wound she’s had. He grabs her hand and holds it to his scar again. 

“I’m yours, you’re mine, and I want everyone to know it,” he growls. 

Jyn’s surprised by how fiercely he says it, but she’s even more surprised by the possessive flare she feels in response. She brings his mouth down to hers, and when they break apart, she has to catch her breath again. She props herself up on her elbows. 

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I was thinking more like, what position you wanted.”

Cassian shifts back, his hands resting on her thighs. He gives her an appraising look, eyes drinking in every inch of her. He takes a step back, drops to his knees, and buries his head between her legs. 

“Fucking-”

She doesn’t finish whatever was coming out of her mouth, because Cassian grabs her thighs and drags her closer to the edge of the bed and closer to him. His mouth is relentless, and the noises coming out of her are just embarrassing. He tightens his grip on her thighs, and she winds her hands through his hair, tugging him closer. He slips two fingers inside of her, and she clenches around him. There’s no finesse--just brutal efficiency, and she comes hard with a shout that might be his name or might just be gibberish. He works her through it, only pulling away when she starts to squirm. He presses a kiss to her thigh, stubble dragging down her skin. Cassian looks up at her, hair half in his eyes and what is definitely a smirk on his face. 

“Don’t look so kriffing smug.”

The smirk widens, and she yanks him back up to her. Jyn kisses him, messy and greedy, tasting herself as she licks her way into his mouth. She reaches down between them and grabs his cock, and the groan he makes hits her straight to her core. He slides into her between breaths, and they both have to pause. 

“Cassian.”

“Give me a minute.”

“Please, take your time.”

Cassian huffs, half laugh, half pant. But he starts to move, and Jyn forgets to give a fuck about anything that isn’t the feel of him on top of her, inside of her. It’s hard to set a steady pace; they keep getting distracted with kisses and wandering hands, and she’s too impatient for this. She pushes at Cassian until he sits up. 

“Are you okay?”

She doesn’t answer; instead she rolls over and shifts onto her hands and knees in one smooth motion. When she looks over her shoulder, he’s grabbing himself and taking deep breaths. 

“Cassian, we can explore each other later. Orgasm, now. Please,” she adds like an afterthought. 

He snorts, but grabs her hips and slams into her, and she sees stars. He’s no rougher than any other lover she’s had, but there’s something in the way he’s holding her tight, the way she’s pushing back into every thrust, rising up to meet him every inch of the way that makes her wonder if it would have been different if they’d found each other earlier--if it would have been this intense, if they would always be this hungry for each other. He bites her neck when he comes, and it’s enough to push her over the edge again. Cassian rolls off of her, and she collapses onto her stomach, breathing hard. Jyn has never been much of a cuddler, even after sex, and apparently neither is Cassian. But he still finds her hand and tangles their fingers together. 

“Two orgasms in under fifteen minutes. Not bad, Captain.”

“I’m nothing if not competent.”

“I’ll take competent over romantic any day of the week.”

“There’s a stolen blaster waiting for you in your room.”

Jyn cracks an eye open to look at him.

“And they say romance is dead.”

“We should get moving; you may have noticed we’re in the middle of an evacuation.”

“Mon Mothma herself could be outside the door; I’m not moving.”

Cassian sighs, exasperated. “Fifteen minutes.”

Jyn turns and looks him over. She’s right--his lips are tinged blue, and there are circular blemishes around his hips that she knows are going to match her own. She reaches out to touch them and glides over a small scar at the corner of his mouth. 

“Bar fight when I was younger. He was teaching me a lesson about mouthing off to my superiors. Don’t worry. I won.”

He kisses her fingertips and reaches over to touch the thin, jagged line across her shoulder blade.

“Bounty hunter with shit aim.”

They explore each other for a while, filling in the gaps between the wounds and their history. 

“Chirrut said that there’s more than one way of soulmates finding each other.”

Cassian nods, drowsy. “I’ve heard of other types--names, first words to each other, birthmarks. I’m sure they exist. The galaxy is huge. Anything’s possible.”

“Why do you think we got these types of marks? Why not each other’s names?”

Cassian yawns. “Which names? Liana? Kestral? I’ve had more fake names than birthdays. We never would have found each other. I think, maybe we got the marks to show that we were similar. That we would understand what each other has been through. That this was the easiest way to let us know that someone was out there, someone who got it. Or maybe it’s just that both of us are fucking stubborn, and these marks can’t be ignored the way a name might be.”

Jyn takes that in and turns his hand over. She brings his wrist to her mouth and makes a gentle mark. The novelty of marking him on his own skin, her mouth on his pulse, makes her toes curl. He cups her face and gives her a soft kiss. They stay that way for way longer than fifteen minutes and only move when Bodhi knocks and sticks his head in, hand covering his eyes, and tells them that Draven is looking for them. 

 

They’re herded into the council room, and Jyn hesitates close to the door. Mothma stands on the other side of the table, a neutral but gentle face in the sea of generals who look unimpressed which is still better than the outright hostility from Draven. Mothma speaks first. 

“Jyn, you upheld your end of our original agreement, and we will do the same. However, you’re not actually a member of the alliance, and the council is hesitant to allow you off world immediately.”

Cassian glances at her, but keeps his face blank. 

“Meaning?” she asks.

“Meaning that until we complete evacuation, you’ll need to stay here. You’ll be on the last transport out to ensure that you do not alert anyone to our presence on Yavin,” Draven spits out. 

Jyn turns to Mothma, bewildered. 

“I risked my life on Scarif for the Alliance. You really think I’d fly into a spaceport and tell every trooper that there’s a rebel base a couple lightyears away?”

“Forgive us if we don’t think that the Alliance is at the top of your priority list,” he replies. 

Mothma meets her eyes and frowns. 

“It’s just a precaution. The same will extend to any of your group who wish to leave.”

Jyn swallows, hard. “And if we stay? If I stay?”

Draven opens his mouth, but Mothma holds up her hand, and he shuts it with a click. 

“If you stay, you’ll join as a normal recruit, with all the training and responsibilities we set for anyone looking to join us. No more, no less.”

It’s as close to a clean slate as Jyn is going to get at this point.

“Cassian?”

Draven speaks up. “Captain Andor is already assigned to a confidential mission. He’ll be shipping out tomorrow.”

She doesn’t gasp, but she bites her tongue hard enough to bleed. She looks to Cassian who won’t meet her eyes. 

“Can I think about it?”

Cassian’s head tilts in her direction, but he keeps his eyes cast downwards.

Mothma nods. “It’s a genuine offer, and completely your choice. But hurry.”

Jyn jerks her head in a quick bob and leaves without checking to see if Cassian follows; he doesn’t. 

She heads to the hangar because Bodhi appears to be living there. She finds him staring up at an x-wing looking very much like he wants to drag his hands down the sides. 

“Do you want me to leave you two lovebirds alone?”

Bodhi spins at the sound of her voice and ducks his head, embarrassed.

“Piss off, Jyn. I’ve just never been this close to one. Even the older models are quite something. Not as clean as the imperial shuttles, but still sleek. Quite lovely really.”

Force help her with pilots in love with their ships. She’d once dealt with a smuggler who spent the better part of two hours waxing poetic about his corellian freighter of all things. 

“You’ll make a very beautiful couple,” she teases, but this time Bodhi doesn’t meet her eyes. 

She’s not surprised. “You’ve joined up then?”

“Yes. I think it’ll be good for me, you know? I want to help.”

He’s so earnest, it’s almost painful. 

“Good. You belong here. You’re a good man Bodhi, and rebellions always need good men.”

He smiles, a little shy. “And pilots.”

“Yes,” she laughs. “A good man and a good pilot. They’d be stupid to let you go.”

He’s blushing now and clears his throat. 

“They haven’t told us where the next base is, but I’m shipping out in the second wave. I think Chirrut and Baze are in the group after me. Have they told you which one you’re in? I assume Cassian will be the last to leave,” Bodhi says, snickering. 

“I don’t know yet,” she says vaguely. 

“Well, you know he’s not leaving without you, so I don’t think you have to worry.”

Bodhi’s smiling, easy and bright, and Jyn forces a smile. 

“Come on, Bodhi. When do I ever worry?”

“Rook!”

They both turn to see what could only be a pilot, a slim, dark haired man in a bright orange flight suit.

“Hey, Wedge. What’s going on?”

“Dameron wants to have a word with you.”

Bodhi grimaces. “Gotta go, Jyn. Meet you in the mess?”

She nods and watches him fall in step with the other man effortlessly. 

“Hey, have you seen Chirrut and Baze?” she calls out after him. 

Bodhi turns, walking backwards and throws his hands up, unsure. “Follow the chanting?”

It makes her laugh, and she waves him off. She doesn’t go look for them; she stays in the hangar and stares out into the jungle. The green reminds her of home. Or what used to be home. It’s much louder--the sounds of a million animals and critters squawking and chirping. But it’s calming. The sun is starting to set by the time Cassian finds her. 

“Chirrut said I’d find you out here. Creepy how he can do that. I didn’t even ask where you were.”

“Yeah, he’s good at that,” she says, and she gives him a wry smile. He returns it, but it disappears quickly. 

“They’ve got Bodhi drooling over an x-wing. He’s a goner.”

Cassian nods. “They gave Baze a flame thrower.”

“And where Baze goes, Chirrut goes.”

Cassian sighs. “Jyn-”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“This is bigger than you and me. I would love to run away to some outer rim planet with you and never think about the empire again. But it doesn’t work that way, and you know it.”

“Who said anything about running away?”

“Nobody. But I have a job to do, regardless of what you choose to do.

She doesn’t reply to that, but she sees him drag a hand down his face, frustrated.

“Jyn, I’ve been with the rebellion since I was six-”

“And you’ve been with me since you were three.”

They’re facing each other now, the tension rolling off of them in waves. 

“I’ve been with you your entire life, but don’t ask me to choose between you and the rebellion, Jyn.”

She looks at him, takes in the dark eyes and crooked nose (broken twice by her count) and the dark circles they’ve probably both had for the better parts of a decade. She looks at the person who’s been on the other side of her universe for twenty six years.

“You should have told me you were leaving,” she says quietly. 

“I’m sorry. But it’s not just you and me. We have to keep fighting.”

Jyn thinks about the capsule she hid in until Saw found her. She thinks about the pipe she hid in when he left her. Thinks about hiding in the dark and hoping someone comes back for her. 

“I’ve come second place to the greater good my entire life, Cassian. This isn’t new.”

Cassian’s mouth twists into something ugly, and he opens it to say something, but she beats it to him. 

“If you need to go, then go. I’m not asking you to stay. I’m asking you to come back.”

He holds her gaze.

“Will you still be here?”

“I’m not a damsel in a holodrama, and we’re in the middle of an evacuation, so no, probably not. But you’re resourceful. You’ll find me.”

His eyebrow quirks. “Try to stay out of prison.”

  
He’s gone in the morning, and Bodhi hustles her into the cockpit of his x-wing to pretend to flip switches as he makes adjustments. She spends the next two days annoyed and on edge. It’s been a very long time since she’s been worried about someone that wasn’t her father and wasn’t herself, and it’s driving her nuts. Baze tracks her down.

 

“You need to find something to do.”

Jyn twirls the sonic wrench in her hand. “I am doing something.”

“Watching you pretend to be helpful is painful. And that’s not what I meant.”

“I help!” she snaps. 

Baze gives her a flat look.

“I’ve been packing and loading and gathering supplies for two days. What more do you want me to do?”

“Pick a path. Commit to it.”

“I am committed.”

“You’re bored. That’s not the same thing. Also, your packing skills are terrible.”

“Rude-”

“You owe someone an answer.”

“What are you-” 

“Do you think Cassian is a coward?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“Do you think he’s being selfish?”

“Kriff, I wish he was. If he was selfish, I’d be dragging him off to the outer rim and into a life of petty crime,” she says, sullenly.

“No, you wouldn’t. You’d be trying to figure out how to sneak onto his ship without Draven knowing and patching into Bodhi’s com line to make sure he knew you were listening for him. If Captain Andor was a selfish coward, he would have shot your father. He would have left you on Scarif. He wouldn’t have gone to Scarif in the first place. If he was a selfish coward, he wouldn’t be your soulmate. Return the favor.”

She wilts a little under the look he’s giving her, and he points her back to the base. She goes to find Mon Mothma. She’s in her office, a small but clean room, away from the heat and humidity that’s seeping into the rest of the base. 

“I’d like to formally join the Alliance.”

Mothma tilts her head and gestures for Jyn to sit down.

“Not that I wouldn’t be happy to welcome you to our ranks, but I’m curious--are you joining for Captain Andor?” 

Jyn shrugs. “Probably. I can’t drag Cassian off to an outer rim paradise until the empire is defeated. And no outer rim paradise is safe while the empire is around. I’m doing the right thing for selfish reasons. It’s going to have to do for now.”

Mothma quirks her mouth like she’s trying not to smile. 

“People join for all sorts of reasons--philosophical, personal. But that cuts both ways, Alliance and Imperial. Bodhi Rook didn’t join the empire because of a desire to enact mass genocide and terror. You went to Jedha and Eadu to find your father but you went to Scarif, for better or worse, because it was the right thing to do. Don’t lose sight of that.”

Jyn nods. “I won’t.”

“Good. Captain Andor will meet up with us at the next rebel base. On Hoth.”

Mothma gives into the smile, and Jyn smiles back. 

“Looking forward to it.”

 

The Death Star shows up in Yavin’s orbit before Jyn can worry about moral compasses, and Cassian comes back before she can worry about the Death Star. 

He looks rundown and ragged, but he makes a beeline straight toward her, and she doesn’t hesitate to throw her arms around his neck. 

“I told you I’d come back.”

“Just in time. We’re about to die.”

“Bodhi?”

“In an x-wing trying not to die.”

“Chirrut? Baze?”

“Chanting. And looking annoyed.”

“And everyone else?”

“Hoping for the best.”

Cassian nods, and brushes her hair out of her face. It sticks to her sweaty forehead instead, and she can see him trying not to laugh. He brings her wrist to his mouth and kisses her pulse.

“That’s all we can do.”

Jyn smiles, manic and half-delirious. She kisses him and drags him towards the control room, for better or worse. “I know. Rebellions are built on hope.”


End file.
